The new casino in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas is raising eyebrows due to its reported huge revenue figures, which apparently dwarf established industry leaders in regional gambling mecca Macau. With increased efforts by Chinese authorities to crackdown on capital flight via Macau, Saipan may be the new destination of choice for mega-wealthy Chinese.

"Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of tailings from the Grasberg mine end up in the Indonesian province’s Aikwa delta system every day, which the Kamoro tribe say is destroying the landscape on which they rely for food and trade."

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen visited the Australian asylum seeker detentional facility on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and concluded that "The world’s refugee crisis knows no more sinister exercise in cruelty than Australia’s island prisons."

U.S. veterans who were involved in clean-up operations at Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands experience much higher levels of cancer and other illnesses presumably related to their exposure to radioactive materials. So far the Department of Defense has refused to accept any link between their work and their health problems and has refused to pay for their healthcare.

Pacific Islands Report is a nonprofit news publication of the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Offered as a free service to readers, PIR provides an edited digest of news, commentary and analysis from across the Pacific Islands region, Monday - Friday.